Greif, Inc.

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Grife Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Bill Donofrio, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development.

Thank you, and good day, everyone. Welcome to Grice Fiscal Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. During the call today, our Chief Executive Officer, Ole Rosgaard, will provide you an update on current business trends, as well as the latest updates on our ongoing operating model change, which will be a focal point of our upcoming Investor Day on December 11th. Our Chief Financial Officer, Larry Hilsheimer, will provide an overview of our third quarter financial results and our fiscal four-year guidance. In accordance with regulation fair disclosure, please ask questions regarding topics you consider important because we are prohibited from discussing material non-public information with you on an individual basis. Please turn to slide two. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements involving plans, expectations, and beliefs related to future events. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Additionally, we will be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP metrics that can be found in the appendix of today's presentation. I'll now turn the presentation over to Ole on slide three. Thank you, Bill. Hello, and thank you for joining us.

Over the past quarter, I've had the privilege of visiting many of our more than 250 plants around the world. Each week, I make it a priority to spend time with our teams on the ground, often joining them in the early hours for the daily 6 a.m. safety meeting. These moments are truly energizing and remind me of the incredible commitment and dedication that our colleagues demonstrate every day. I'm tremendously proud of how our people live our purpose and values, driving safety, quality, operational excellence, and importantly, delivering legendary customer service. It's clear that these are more than just words. They are principles embodied in the work our teams do day in and day out across every location. I also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our leaders and executive team for their outstanding leadership during this quarter. Working alongside such a committed and talented group of people is not just a source of pride for me, but also a privilege. As we review our results today, it's important to remember that the achievements we're sharing are the results of thousands of people pulling together, aligned by a shared purpose and values. I'm excited about where we're headed and the opportunities that lie ahead. At Greif, all the work we perform is focused on our purpose, creating packaging solutions for life's essentials. Wherever you are located today, listening to this, look around the room the adhesive that holds your desk together, the chemicals used to manufacture your smartphone, the foam in your seat cushion, the soles in your shoes, the orange juice you had for breakfast, the vitamin supplements you took this morning, and the lubricants in the car you drove to work. All of these are essential everyday products, and all of them at one time contained materials which were stored and shipped in dry packaging products. We know that. it was Greif products because Greif maintains leading positions in nearly all industrial packaging capabilities globally and by no accident. Those leading positions are the result of the deeply entrenched competitive advantage we have developed in our business. The most critical of which is our legendary customer service as outlined in our vision statements. Greif is in the middle of a significant evolution We are making excellent progress on our strategic missions by following our principles and all of this is engineered to create a flywheel of financial success through the right business system. Towards the end of today's prepared remarks, I will provide you with some more information on the operating model change we announced last December and are nearing completion on. Let's shift gears to near-term performance in fiscal Q3. Please turn to slide four. I'm pleased to report another solid quarter for Greif, where we continue to successfully manage through a variable and uncertain operating environments. All regions globally experience net growth in the quarter, despite choppiness on an individual and market basis. Although small on a year-on-year basis, we are encouraged that North America has now evidenced the east-to-west demand improvements we have talked about over the past quarters. There's still significant runway to reaching a normalized level of volumes, but recent trends have us cautiously optimistic as we have exited the trough on volumes. This trend also applies to our LATAM region. APAC improvement, while expected, was also encouraging. As we mentioned, Q2 was negatively impacted by a short but significant destocking after Chinese New Year, but is now on the path to recovery. EMEA, our largest GIP market, at approximately 45% of GIP sales, saw a third straight quarter of sequential improvements. This is particularly important as underlying macroeconomic data from calendar Q1 into calendar Q2 continue to be negative with PMI fluctuating around the 45 mark. In both Q2 and Q3, loops, chemicals, paints and coatings and markets are a source of strength. This is equally notable as our volume performance in the quarter outpaced many of the leading companies serving those end markets. This outperformance demonstrates our legendary customer service paired with the Greif Business System in action. We are maintaining close relationships with our customers and then reacting with decisive action when change occurs. With that, I will turn things over to Larry on slide five to walk through our third quarter results.